Celia Johnson ... Laura Jesson
Trevor Howard ... Dr. Alec Harvey
Stanley Holloway ... Albert Godby
Joyce Carey ... Myrtle Bagot
Cyril Raymond ... Fred Jesson
Everley Gregg ... Dolly Messiter
Marjorie Mars ... Mary Norton
Margaret Barton ... Beryl Walters, Tea Room Assistant
- Review
Brief Encounter
(1946) is director David Lean's brilliantly-crafted, classic British
masterpiece. It is one of the greatest romantic tearjerkers/weepers of all
time, with a very downbeat ending. Lean's film is a simple but
realistically-honest, unsentimental, self-told social melodrama of the quiet
desperation involved in an illicit, extra-marital love affair between two
married, middle-class individuals over seven weekly meetings, mostly against
the backdrop of a railway station. The romantic couple includes a
wife/mother (stage actress Celia Johnson) looking for escape from her
humdrum life and sterile marriage, and a dashing doctor (Trevor Howard in
his third film). (Characteristics of film noir also abound within the film -
unglamorous locations, rain-slicked streets, dimly-lit interiors and dark
train passageways in a tale of doomed, unfulfilled and frustrated love.)
Video:
Brief Encounter (1946)
Courtesy: YouTube
The screenplay was
adapted and based on playwright Noel Coward's 1935 short one-act (half-hour)
stage play Still Life. It was expanded from five short scenes in a train
station (the refreshment tea room of Milford Junction Station) to include
action in other settings (the married woman's house, the apartment of the
married man's friend, restaurants, parks, train compartments, shops, a car,
a boating lake and at the cinema), although the film still maintains chaste
minimalism.
This was the fourth in a series of films directed by David Lean in the early
40s, all made in collaboration with producer/writer Noel Coward:
In Which We Serve (1942)
This Happy Breed (1944)
Blithe Spirit (1945)
Brief Encounter (1945 or 1946)
Lean's earliest co-directorial effort was for Major Barbara (1941) with
Gabriel Pascal - a film adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's 1905 social
comedy.
This simple, poignant 'womens-type' film was positioned between his classic
war film In Which We Serve (1942) and his later epic films, including The
Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and Doctor
Zhivago (1965). The film was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best
Actress (Celia Johnson), Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay (Noel
Coward, David Lean, and Anthony Havelock-Allan), and won the major prize at
the first Cannes Film Festival. This was Lean's first nomination as director
- notably, he was the first British director to be nominated for an Academy
Award.
Touching, emotional, accessible and realistic performances are delivered by
the two main, middle-aged characters, although both lack charismatic star
quality. The film ends on a bittersweet, unhappy note when the couple
realizes that their chaste romance is over. The two lovers never consummate
their romantic involvement by sexual relations (at least on-screen) in the
bedroom. The narrative of the film is coherently communicated through
voice-over flashbacks of the female character's emotionally-fraught memories
that link the various scenes together. Her voice-overs are richly nuanced by
her emotions, despair, imagination, remorse, and happiness - by all of her
romantic feelings. In fact, at one point, she is in the physical presence of
her husband, imagining that she is telling him about her affair - but in
actuality, she is only speaking to herself. Throughout the film, she
smoothly shifts from her role as a suburban housewife (and mother), to a
hopeful woman who is excitedly on the verge of romance, to a
self-analytical, reflective individual who painfully looks back in hindsight
on the entire affair and responds to her full range of emotions.
As the credit sequence illustrates, the film is about the scheduled, routine
comings and goings, appointments and meetings, and arrivals and departures
within structured, ordinary, everyday life. An express train whistles and
crosses from left to right as it passes through the Milford Junction train
station, sending up billowing steam and generating wind as the credits play
to the musical score of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2. [Rachmaninoff's
music plays over many of the film's scenes to emphasize their lyrical
emotionality.] At the end of the credits, another train comes from the
opposite direction, moving from right to left across the screen. The passage
of the trains on different tracks clearly represent the lives of the two
protagonists whose lives ultimately move, without romance, in different
directions.
Significantly, the satisfied station attendant Albert Godby (Stanley
Holloway) notes the punctuality of the two scheduled trains. In the train's
tea room of the fictional Milford Junction station, Godby engages in "idle
gossip" and casual, earthy sexual banter with the pretentious refreshments
room hostess Myrtle Bagot (Joyce Carey). Another more restrained couple is
glimpsed sitting quietly and sadly together at one of the tables. Although
not known until further into the film, Brief Encounter opens in the past -
as the middle-aged couple meet and then part for the last time. [The same
scene of their final moments is played out another time at the film's
downbeat conclusion - filtered by the woman's subjective perspective in the
last scene. The second viewing of the beginning of the film reveals
different patterns, new camera angles, additional information, fresh
editing, and richer significance.]
The pensive couple, two middle-class people, doctor/general practitioner
Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard) and mournful-eyed housewife Laura Jesson (Celia
Johnson) are deep in conversation. [The meaning and significance of their
situation - as unrequited lovers who are soon to separate - is not
understood on first viewing.] The hostess' last unfriendly quip to Godby
wryly criticizes his unreliability in their own imagined affair: "Time and
tide wait for no man, Mr. Godby."
The seated couple are interrupted by an overbearing, matronly gossip Dolly
Messiter (Everley Gregg), who recognizes Laura and joins them for a cup of
tea after a day of shopping ("I've been shopping till I'm dropping"). She
intrudes unexpectedly, garrulously dominating the conversation until it is
time for Alec to abruptly part to catch his 5:40 train to Churley ("I go in
the opposite direction"). Dolly spoils their final few, painful moments
together, forcing their farewell to be brief and offhandedly deceptive. When
he rises to leave, he lightly places his hand on Laura's cloth-coated
shoulder and then departs. As Dolly continues to chatter, put on makeup, and
then order chocolate, Laura's sullen and drawn face reveals upset. She
momentarily disappears (just before an express train roars through the
station), and then returns in a distressed state, standing at the doorway of
the tea room and explaining: "I just wanted to see the express go through."
Well-meaning, Dolly buys and offers a faint Laura a 10 pence sip of brandy
for her ill-health.
They both board the train and share a small compartment, where Dolly makes
prying, side remarks about her companion from the tea room:
Dolly: Well, he certainly was very good-looking.
Laura: Who?
Dolly: Well, your friend, Doctor whatever his name was.
Laura: Yes, he's a nice creature.
Dolly: You've known him long?
Laura: No, not very long. I hardly know him at all really.
Dolly: Well my dear, I've always had a passion for doctors. I can well
understand how it is...
As Dolly's words fade away, a zoom closeup slowly fills the frame with
Laura's face as she begins an inner narration of private thoughts,
interrupted by Dolly's further noisy questions:
Laura (speaking about Dolly to herself): I wish I could trust you. I wish
you were a wise, kind friend, instead of a gossiping acquaintance I've known
casually for years and never particularly cared for. I wish, I wish...
Dolly: Fancy him going all the way to Africa. Is he married?
Laura: Oh yes.
Dolly: Any children?
Laura: Yes. Two boys. He's very proud of them.
Dolly: Is he taking them with him, his wife and children I mean?
Laura: Yes, yes he is.
Dolly: Well I suppose it's sensible in a way, rushing off to start anew in
the wide open spaces and all that sort of thing. But, ha, ha, wild horses
wouldn't drag me away from England and home and all the things I'm used to.
I mean, one has one's roots after all, hasn't one?
Laura: Oh yes, one has one's roots.
During a grotesque closeup of Dolly's gigantic lips which move as she
speaks, Laura narrates further to herself:
I wish you'd stop talking. I wish you'd stop prying and trying to find
things out. I wish you were dead - no I don't mean that. That was silly and
unkind. But I wish you'd stop talking.
Her wish is fulfilled when Dolly stops talking and allows Laura to close her
eyes until they approach their destination, affording her a chance to
express her profound sadness and suffering in a concealed, inner monologue.
Sadly, she knows that everything comes back to the same monotony (the weekly
visits from suburbia to the town, the railway station, the cinema, the tea
room, and her numbing home life). Therefore, she wishes to savor the
fleeting joys and passions she experienced for the first time in her married
life:
This can't last. This misery can't last. I must remember that and try to
control myself. Nothing lasts really. Neither happiness nor despair. Not
even life lasts very long. They'll come a time in the future when I shan't
mind about this anymore. But I can look back and say quite peacefully and
cheerfully how silly I was. No, no I don't want that time to come hither. I
want to remember every minute, always, always to the end of my days.
When Laura enters her home, her helpless husband Fred (Cyril Raymond) is
relieved, explaining how their two children Bobbie (Richard Thomas) and
Margaret (Henrietta Vincent) have been fighting and the "place has been in
an uproar." After the children have been put to bed, Laura discusses with
her husband in the downstairs study the next day's plans with the children.
Fred jokes cruelly: "We'll thrash them both soundly, lock them up in the
attic, and go to the pictures by ourselves." Suddenly, Laura is overwhelmed
with memories and tears as she listens to a distant train whistle:
Laura: Oh, Fred.
Fred: What's the matter?
Laura (crying into a handkerchief): Nothing really, it's nothing.
Fred: Darling, what's wrong? Tell me please.
Laura: Really and truly, it's nothing. I'm just a little run-down, that's
all. I had a sort of fainting spell at the refreshment room at Milford.
Wasn't it idiotic? Dolly Messiter was with me and she talked and talked...I
wanted to strangle her...Isn't it awful about people meaning to be kind?
Fred suggests retiring to the library by the fire to relax where he can also
complete The Times' crossword puzzle. Laura responds: "You have the most
peculiar ideas of relaxation," and later tells him: "Now you get on with
your ol' puzzle and leave me in peace." Fred asks for her assistance with
one of the crossword puzzle clues, a quotation from John Keats' poem - "When
I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be":
Fred: You're a poetry addict. See if you can help me over this. It's Keats.
'When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high
-------.' Something that's seven letters.
Laura (immediately): Romance, I think. I'm almost sure it is. 'Huge cloudy
symbols of a high romance.' It will be in the Oxford Book of English Verse.
Fred: No, it's right I'm sure. It fits in with delirium and Baluchistan.
Laura (getting up to put music on the radio): Would some music throw you off
your stride?
While her staid, unimaginative husband continues to work on the crossword
puzzle and they listen to Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 by the hearth,
Laura attends to her embroidery, while brooding, fantasizing and conducting
a caring, inner monologue toward her decent-minded husband for the remainder
of the film. [The series of reflective monologues are contained within a
complex pattern of flashbacks, narrated in a softly-spoken and tender, but
direct, staccato voice, often overlaid with lyrical, romantically-delirious
Rachmaninoff music from the radio.]
She first confesses the dynamic passion she experienced in her
transformational escape from her ordinary routine, considered unusually
climactic for an "ordinary woman." Narrated and told through a series of
flashback memories (or subjective reveries) by the lonely country housewife,
she feels trapped and circumscribed within a repressive social system and
rebels against the limitations of life itself. Laura fantasizes and recalls
the last few tumultuous weeks of her life while seated in the arm chair of
her living room. Laura ironically confirms: "I'm a happily married woman."
Fred, dear Fred. There's so much that I want to say to you. You're the only
one in the world with enough wisdom and gentleness to understand. If only it
was somebody else's story and not mine. As it is, you're the only one in the
world that I can never tell. Never never. Because even if I waited until we
were old, old people and told you then, you'd be bound to look back over the
years and be hurt. And my dear, I don't want you to be hurt. You see, we're
a happily married couple and let's never forget that. This is my home.
You're my husband. And my children are upstairs in bed. I'm a happily
married woman - or I was, rather, until a few weeks ago. This is my whole
world, and it's enough, or rather, it was until a few weeks ago. But, oh,
Fred, I've been so foolish. I've fallen in love. I'm an ordinary woman. I
didn't think such violent things could happen to ordinary people.
In the tea room of the Milford Junction station (the junction for many
suburban trains) after one of her weekly shopping trips (including going to
the library for book exchanges, lunch and going to the movies - activities
that provide imaginary, vicarious escapes for her into the lives of other
middle-class women haunted by romantic encounters), she accidentally meets
Dr. Alec Harvey, a happily-married man. She begins her flashback by
describing the ordinariness of her environment:
It all started on an ordinary day in the most ordinary place in the world -
the refreshment room at Milford Junction. I was having a cup of tea and
reading a book that I got that morning from Boots. My train wasn't due for
ten minutes. I looked up and saw a man come in from the platform. He had on
an ordinary Mack, his hat was turned down and I didn't even see his face. He
got his tea at the counter and turned. Then I did see his face. It was
rather a nice face...He passed my table on the way to his...Oh please, could
you give me a glass of water? I've got something in my eye and I want to
bathe it.
A kind stranger in the refreshment room, he graciously helps her to
delicately remove a speck of grit from her eye, blown there by a passing
express train as she stood on the platform. They quickly part when he leaves
for his train. [The speck of dust is symbolic of the romance being planted
in her heart.]
That's how it all began, just through me getting a little piece of grit in
my eye. I completely forgot the whole incident. It didn't mean anything to
me at all. At least I didn't think it did.
In their second chance meeting, they enjoy a brief, casual but pleasant
conversation on the street during another of her weekly trips - trips where
she appears to be searching for something that her dull husband and
routinized life cannot offer:
The next Thursday, I went into Milford again as usual. I changed my book at
Boots....Just as I stepped out onto the pavement...
Alec: Good morning.
Laura: Oh, good morning.
Alec: How's the eye?
Laura: Perfectly all right. How kind it was of you to take so much trouble.
Alec: Nothing at all. It's clearing up I think.
Laura: Yes, it's going to be nice.
Alec: Well, I must be getting along to the hospital.
Laura: Now I must be getting along to the grocers.
Alec (wryly): What exciting lives we lead, don't we?
On a third weekly trip to town, Laura is expectant about meeting Alec again,
but doesn't.
That evening, I had to run nearly all the way to the station. I'd been to
the Palladium as usual, but it was a terribly long film and I was afraid I'd
be late. As I came up onto the platform, the Cherriot train was just puffing
out. I looked up as the windows of the carriages went by, wondering if he
was there. Another idea was crossing my mind but it was quite unimportant. I
was really thinking of other things...
On her fourth weekly trip, after feeling madly extravagant and suddenly
purchasing an expensive birthday gift for Fred, she coincidentally shares a
luncheon table with Alec in the Kardomah, a crowded restaurant complete with
a "dreadful" ladies' orchestra. They begin to find themselves drawn to each
other:
...the next Thursday...I suddenly felt reckless and gay. The sun was out and
everybody in the street looked more cheerful than usual...[At a restaurant]
just after I'd given my order, I saw him come in. He looked a little tired I
thought, and there was nowhere for him to sit, so I smiled and said:
Laura: Good morning.
Alec: Oh, good morning. Are you all alone?
Laura: Yes I am.
Alec: Would you mind if I shared your table? It's very full. There doesn't
seem to be anywhere else.
Laura: No, of course not.
Alec: I'm afraid we haven't been introduced properly. My name's Alec Harvey.
Laura: How do you do? Mine's Laura Jesson.
Alec: Mrs. or Miss?
Laura: Mrs. You're a doctor, aren't you? I remember you said so that day in
the refreshment room.
Alec: Yes. Not a very interesting one. Just an ordinary G.P. My practice is
in Churley...
Laura (speaking about musical talents): After all you know, I might have
tremendous, burning, professional talent.
Alec: No, dear, no.
Laura: Why are you so sure?
Alec: You're too sane and not complicated.
Laura: I suppose it's a good thing to be uncomplicated, but it does sound a
little dull.
Alec: You could never be dull.
Laura: Do you come here every Thursday?
Alec: Yes, to spend a day at the hospital...Do you?
Laura: Do I what?
Alec: Come here every Thursday?
Laura: Oh yes. I do the week's shopping, ... change my library book, have
lunch, and generally go to the pictures. Not a very exciting routine but it
makes change.
Alec: Are you going to the pictures this afternoon?
Laura: Yes.
Alec: Hmmm, how extraordinary! So am I..
Laura: I thought you had to spend all day at the hospital.
Alec: Well, between ourselves, I killed two patients by accident this
morning...I simply daren't go back.
Laura: Can you be so silly?
Alec: Seriously...Would you mind very much if I came to the pictures with
you?
Laura: Well...
Alec: I could sit downstairs. You could sit upstairs.
Laura: Upstairs is too expensive...
...I had no premonitions. I suppose I should have had. It all seemed so
natural and so innocent.
After lunch, they innocently attend the cinema together, choosing to see
"Love in the Mist" at the Palladium. [Laura insists that they each pay their
own separate admission but Alec buys them tickets for the upstairs balcony
anyway. The trailer/preview before the main feature is for a film titled
"Flames of Passion" - advertised as: "Stupendous," "Colossal," "Gigantic,"
and "Epoch-Making."
Laura: I feel awfully grand perched up here. It was very extravagant of you.
Alec: It was a famous victory.
Laura: Do you feel guilty at all? I do.
Alec: Guilty?
Laura: You ought to more than me, really. You neglected your work this
afternoon.
Alec: I worked this morning. A little relaxation never did harm to anyone.
Why should I always feel guilty?
Laura: I don't know.
Alec: How organized you are!
The movie theatre's organ ascends from underneath the floor, causing Laura
to exclaim: "It can't be!"
We walked back to the station together. Just as we reached the gates, he put
his hand under my arm. I didn't notice it then, but I remember it now.
Laura: What's she like, your wife?
Alec: Madeleine? Small, dark, rather delicate.
Laura: How funny! I supposed she would have been fair.
Alec: Your husband. What's he like?
Laura: Medium height. Brown hair. Kindly, unemotional, and not delicate at
all.
Alec: You said that proudly.
Laura: Did I?
They share a cup of tea and fresh Banbury buns at a corner table in the
railway station's refreshment room before their trains depart in opposite
directions. He admits to being a social idealist - combined with boyish,
youthful enthusiasm for his occupation in preventive medicine. Slowly and
imperceptibly behind their very understated British restraint and formality,
the couple finds their lives are transformed by their mutual attraction,
with intense moments of great tenderness, gentleness, and loving care:
Laura: Why did you become a doctor?
Alec: That's a long story. Perhaps because I'm a bit of an idealist.
Laura: I think all doctors ought to have ideals, really. Otherwise, their
work would be unbearable.
Alec: Surely, you're not encouraging me to talk shop.
Laura: Why shouldn't you talk shop? It's what interests you most, isn't it?
Alec: Yes, it is. I'm terribly ambitious really, not ambitious for myself so
much as for my special pigeon.
Laura: What is your special pigeon?
Alec: Preventive medicine.
Laura: I see.
Alec: I'm afraid you don't.
Laura: I was trying to be intelligent.
Alec: Most good doctors, especially when they're young, have private dreams.
That's the best part of it. Sometimes though, those get
over-professionalized and strangulated...What I mean is this, all good
doctors must primarily be enthusiasts. They must, like writers and painters
and priests, they must have a sense of vocation. A deep-rooted,
unsentimental desire to do good.
Laura: Yes, I see that.
Alec: Well, obviously one way of preventing disease is worth fifty ways of
curing it. That's where my ideal comes in. Preventive medicine isn't
anything to do with medicine at all, really. It's concerned with conditions,
living conditions and hygeine and common-sense. For instance, my specialty
is pneumoconiosis...it's nothing but a slow process of fibrosis of the lung
due to the inhalation of particles of dust. In the hospital here, there are
splendid opportunities for observing cures and making notes because of the
coal mines.
Laura: You suddenly look much younger.
Alec: Do I?
Laura: Almost like a little boy.
Alec: What made you say that?
Laura (as the lyrical Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto plays in the
background): I don't know. Yes I do.
Alec: Tell me.
Laura: No, I couldn't really. You were saying about the coal mines.
Alec: Oh yes. The inhalation of coal dust...
They look intently into each other's eyes and the music builds, as Alec
recites various forms of lung disease and his idealistic dedication to his
medical profession. Their conversation comes to an end when Alec's train
bell sounds. Hastily, Alec initiates further meetings ("Shall I see you
again?"). They make plans to continue seeing other, not by chance any more
but in planned meetings during Thursday rendezvous that eventually become
less and less innocent:
Laura: It's been so very nice. I've enjoyed my afternoon enormously.
Alec: I'm so glad. So have I. I apologize for boring you with long medical
words.
Laura: I feel dull and stupid not to be able to understand more.
Alec: Shall I see you again?
Laura (not answering his question): It's out on the platform, isn't it? You
have to run. Don't bother about me. Mine's not due for a few minutes.
Alec: Can I see you again?
Laura: Yes, of course. Perhaps you'll come out to Ketchworth one Sunday.
It's rather far, but we should be delighted...
Alec: Please, please.
Laura: What is it?
Alec: Next Thursday, the same time.
Laura: No, I couldn't possibly.
Alec: Please. I ask you most humbly.
Laura: You'll miss your train.
Alec: All right.
Laura: Run.
Alec (extending his hand): Goodbye.
Laura: I'll be there.
Alec: Thank you, my dear.
Following their third meeting together (after meeting a month earlier), they
cheerfully wave to each other as Alec's train departs. Laura ponders every
action Alec may make as he returns home - but then a wave of doubt sweeps
over her as she struggles with her romantic yearnings:
I stood there and watched his train draw out of the station. I stared after
it, until its tail light had vanished into the darkness. I imagined him
getting out at Churley, giving up his ticket, walking back through the
streets, letting himself into his house with his latchkey. His wife
Madeleine, will probably be in the hall to meet him, or perhaps upstairs in
her room, not feeling very well. Small, dark, and rather delicate. I
wondered if he'd say: 'I met such a nice woman at the Kardomah. We had lunch
and went to the pictures.' And then suddenly, I knew that he wouldn't. I
knew beyond a shadow of doubt that he wouldn't say a word - and at that
moment, the first awful feeling of danger swept over me. (The steam from her
arriving train hisses at her.)
In the train compartment on the trip home, she guiltily wonders about the
other passengers, squirming and averting her eyes when she senses that a
clergyman across from her may perceive her sinful blushing:
I looked hurriedly around the carriage, to see if anyone was looking at me,
as if they could read my secret thoughts. No one was, except a clergyman in
the opposite corner. I felt myself blushing and opened my library book and
pretended to read.
Tormented, she buries her frustrated longing and vows never to see Alec
again. She blames herself for neglecting her obligations at home when she
returns and finds that her child has been hurt in an accident:
By the time I got to Ketchworth, I'd made up my mind definitely that I
wasn't going to see Alec anymore...I walked up to the house quite briskly
and cheerfully. I'd been behaving like an idiot admittedly, but after all,
no harm had been done. You met me in the hall. Your face was strained and
worried and my heart sank.
Her young boy was knocked down by a car on his way home from school and
suffered a "slight concussion." She hovers over his bed, terrified and
imagining being punished for straying from society's conventions and
neglecting family responsibilities:
I felt so dreadful Fred, looking at him lying there with that bandage round
his head. I tried not to show it, but I was quite hysterical inside, as
though the whole thing were my fault, a sort of punishment, an awful
sinister warning.
An hour or two later however, Bobbie felt better and "reveled in the fact
that he was the center of attraction." In front of the domestic hearth fire
while Fred stolidly works on another crossword puzzle, they discuss options
for Bobbie's future - a career in the distant navy or in a nearby office
where she can "see him off on the 8:50 every morning." Suddenly, Laura spins
around and confesses her rendezvous with Alec, but her kindly, unquestioning
husband is more interested in his crossword puzzle than in her. He
misunderstands her worries about her new acquaintance:
Laura: I had lunch with a strange man today and he took me to the movies.
Fred: Good for you.
Laura: He's awfully nice. He's a doctor.
Fred: A very noble profession.
Laura: Oh dear.
Fred: It was Richard the Third who said: 'My kingdom for a horse,' wasn't
it?
Laura: Yes, darling.
Fred: Yes, well I wish to goodness he hadn't, 'cause it spoils everything.
Laura: I felt perhaps we might ask him to dinner one night.
Fred: By all means. Who?
Laura: Dr. Harvey. The one I was telling you about.
Fred: Must it be dinner?
Laura: Well, you're never at home for lunch.
Fred: Exactly.
Laura: Oh Fred (laughing)...
Fred: Now what on earth's the matter?
Laura: It's nothing...oh Fred...
Fred: I really don't see what's so frightfully funny.
Laura: Oh, I do. It's, it's all right darling. I'm not laughing at you. I'm
laughing at me. I'm the one that's funny. I'm an absolute idiot. Worrying
myself about things that don't exist and making mountains out of molehills.
Fred: I told you when you came in that it was nothing serious. There was
nothing to get into such a state about.
Laura: I do see that now, I really do (more elated laughing).
The next Thursday, a dutiful Laura rationalizes a fourth meeting with Dr.
Harvey, and then realizes how melancholy she feels by his unexpected
absence:
When Thursday came, I went to meet Alec, more as a matter of politeness than
for any other reason. It didn't seem very important, but after all, I had
promised. I managed to get the same table, I waited a bit but he didn't
come. The ladies' orchestra was playing away as usual. I looked at the
cellist. She had seemed to be so funny last week. Today she didn't seem
funny any more. What a pathetic poor thing. After lunch, I happened to pass
by the hospital. I remember looking up at the windows and wondering if he
were there, or was there something awful that happened to prevent him
turning up. I got to the station earlier than usual. I hadn't enjoyed the
pictures much. It was one of those noisy musical things that I'm so sick of
them. I'd come out before it was over. As I took my tea to the table, I
suddenly wondered if I'd made a mistake - that he'd meant me to meet him
there.
At the train station, Laura is amused while watching the banterings and
adolescent flirtations of the British working-class relationship between the
hostess and the station guard. The 5:40 bell rings to warn of her
approaching train, and she is worried and desperate that Alec is failing to
show:
As I left the refreshment room, I saw a train coming in, his train. He
wasn't on the platform, and I suddenly felt panic-stricken at the thought of
not seeing him again.
Suddenly, Alec races toward the station, as frantic to see her as she is to
see him - the poignancy of the moment is loudly underscored by
Rachmaninoff's concerto, drowning out his explanation for being late. It is
at this juncture that they both realize they have fallen in love. She rushes
with him under the tracks to the door of his departing train, her face
beaming:
Alec: I'm so glad I had a chance to explain. I didn't think I'd see you
again.
Laura: Enough said, now go quickly, quickly.
Alec (on board the moving train): Next Thursday?
Laura: Yes, next Thursday.
Alec: Goodbye.
Laura: Goodbye.
Alec: Thursday. Goodbye.
For their fifth meeting (in six weeks) on a Thursday, they first attend the
Milford Cinema and sit in the balcony a second time. They view a humorous
cartoon of loveable Donald Duck, exhibiting "his dreadful energy and his
blind frustrated rages." When the main picture "Flames of Passion" begins (a
film fantasy that will work its magic upon them - especially upon Laura who
lives a life of romantic fantasy), Alec warns of the fresh stimulation of
their emotions which will result:
It's the big picture now. Here we go. No more laughter. Prepare for tears.
[Screen credits reveal that the fictitious film is "Based on the Novel
'Gentle Summer' by Alice Porter Stoughey." In parallel fashion, Laura's
imagination is highly-charged and passionate, while the reality of her brief
encounter is more commonplace and low-key.] They leave the theatre, stand
outside, and then decide to go to the park - an invigorating interlude in a
naturalistic, but drab setting (the first time they break away from their
emotionally-constrained, stunted environment). In the Botanical Gardens,
where boys sail boats on the lake and white swans swim on the water's
surface, they rent a boat for the day, even though the boats are "covered
up":
It was a terribly bad picture. We crept out before the end, rather
furtively, as though we were committing a crime. The usherette at the door
looked at us with stony contempt. It was a lovely afternoon. It was a relief
to be in the fresh air. We decided we'd go to the Botanical Gardens. Do you
know, I believe we should all behave quite differently if we lived in a
warm, sunny climate all the time? We shouldn't be so withdrawn and shy and
difficult. Oh Fred, it really was a lovely afternoon. There were some little
boys sailing their boats - one of them looked awfully like Bobbie. That
should have given me a pang of conscience I know, but it didn't. I was
enjoying myself, enjoying every single minute. Alec suddenly said that he
was sick of staring at the water and that he wanted to be on it. All the
boats were covered up, but we managed to persuade the old man to let us have
one. He thought we were raving mad. Perhaps he was right. Alec rowed off at
a great rate, and I trailed my hand in the water. It was very cold but a
lovely feeling...
Alec admits his lack of rowing experience and advises that she steer their
directionless rowboat: "And unless you want to go round and round in
ever-narrowing circles, you'd better start steering." They let the flow of
the water take them along its course, until they figuratively and physically
bump into a man-made barrier under a stone bridge (a symbol of the narrow
obstacles in their repressive environments and private lives).
While giving in to her growing love, Laura detests herself for the intense
enjoyment their meetings stimulate:
Oh, we had such fun, Fred. I felt gay and happy and so released. That's
what's so shameful about it all. That's what would hurt you so much if you
knew, that I could feel so intensely as that, away from you with a stranger.
Alec: You know it's happened don't you?
Laura: Yes. Yes I do.
Alec: I've fallen in love with you.
Laura: Yes, I know.
Alec: Tell me honestly, please tell me honestly if what I believe is true.
Laura: What do you believe?
Alec: That it's the same with you. That you've fallen in love too.
Laura: Sounds so silly.
Alec: Why?
Laura: I know you so little.
Alec: It is true, though, isn't it?
Laura: Yes, it's true.
Alec: Laura...
Laura: No, please, we must be sensible. Please help me to be sensible. We
mustn't behave like this. We must forget that we've said what we've said.
Alec: Not yet, not quite yet.
Laura: But we must - don't you see?
Alec: Listen. It's too late now to be sensible as all that. It's too late to
forget what we've said. And anyway, whether we'd said it or not, it couldn't
have mattered. We know. We've both of us known for a long time.
Laura: How can you say that? I've only known you for four weeks. We only
talked for the first time last Thursday week.
Alec: Last Thursday week. Has it been a long time for you since then? Answer
me truly.
Laura: Yes.
Alec: How often did you decide that you were never going to see me again?
Laura: Several times a day.
Alec: So did I...
They both struggle against their budding, radiating love, believing that it
will not bring them the true happiness that they both seek. Out of a sense
of duty to their families, to moral and social propriety, and to their own
repressed upbringings, their troubled, agonized love causes them to guard
their actions and to feel pained by the pressure building from the
disruptions:
Alec: ...I love you. I love your wide eyes, the way you smile, your shyness,
and the way you laugh at my jokes.
Laura (whimpers): Please don't.
Alec: I love you. I love you. You love me too. It's no use pretending it
hasn't happened cause it has.
Laura: Yes it has. I don't want to pretend anything either to you or to
anyone else. But from now on, I shall have to. That's what's wrong. Don't
you see? That's what spoils everything. That's why we must stop, here and
now, talking like this. We're neither of us free to love each other. There's
too much in the way. There's still time, if we control ourselves and behave
like sensible human beings. There's still time. (She is overcome with
tears.)
In the dark, shadowy underground subway tunnel-passage of the train station,
Laura succumbs to Alec's first kiss:
Laura: Oh Alec, not here, someone will see.
Alec: I love you so.
As they passionately kiss for the first time, two large, long shadows of
approaching passengers darken the tunnel's wall behind them, a newspaper
swirls in front of them, and the roar of the approaching train is heard. The
forceful speed of the noisy train represents their passion rising and
crashing through the silence.
Sitting in the study with her husband, Laura is jarred from her memories by
her husband's voice. She is confused and polarized by an inner struggle:
Fred: You were miles away.
Laura: Was I? Yes, I suppose I was.
Fred: You mind if we turn that down a little [referring to Rachmaninoff on
the radio]. It really is deafening.
Laura: Of course not.
Fred: Shan't be long over this darling and we'll go up to bed. You look a
bit tired, you know.
Laura: Don't hurry. I'm perfectly happy.
How can I possibly say that? 'Don't hurry. I'm perfectly happy.' If only it
were true. Not I suppose that anybody's ever perfectly happy really. But
just to be ordinarily contented. To be at peace. It's such a little while
ago really but it seems an eternity since that train went out of the
station, taking him away into the darkness. I was happy then.
Following their first kiss, Laura subjectively remembers her return to the
train platform and her ride home to the dull English countryside. She is
flushed with love - not even remorseful or ashamed:
As I went back through the subway to my own platform, I was walking on air.
And when I got into the train, I didn't even pretend to read. I didn't care
whether other people were looking at me or not. I had to think. (She peers
at her own reflection in the dark train window and smiles.) I should have
been utterly wretched and ashamed, I know I should but I wasn't. I felt
suddenly quite wildly happy, like a romantic schoolgirl, like a romantic
fool. He'd said he loved me. And I'd said I loved him. And it was true. It
was true. I imagined him holding me in his arms. I imagined being with him
in all sorts of glamorous circumstances. It was one of those absurd
fantasies just like one has when one is a girl, being wooed and married by
the ideal of one's dreams...
Her imaginary, impossibly-escapist, romantically "absurd," "schoolgirl"
fantasy visions are projected onto various glamorous and exotic locations.
She fantasizes being with Alec in a variety of romantic situations - the
images are superimposed on the darkened window of the countryside as her
train rushes to the suburbs. When she arrives at her destination, "all the
silly dreams disappeared":
- Dancing to a waltz at a ball, under shimmering chandeliers.
- Going to the opera in Paris.
- Drifting and being romanticized on a gondola on Venice's Grand Canal.
- Driving away together in a fancy convertible.
- Sailing on the deck of a luxury ocean liner.
- Standing on a windy tropical island in the moonlight under palm trees.
I stared out of that railway carriage window into the dark and watched the
dim trees and the telegraph posts slipping by. And through them, I saw Alec
and me. Alec and me, perhaps a little younger than we are now but just as
much in love and with nothing in the way. I saw us in Paris, in a box at the
opera. The orchestra was tuning up. Then we were in Venice, drifting along
the Grand Canal in a gondola with the sound of mandolins coming to us over
the water. I saw us traveling far away together, all the places I've always
longed to go. I saw us leaning on the rail of a ship looking at the sea and
stars, standing on a tropical beach in the moonlight with the palm trees
sighing above us. Then the palm trees changed into those willows by the
canal just before the level crossing. And all the silly dreams disappeared.
And I got out at Ketchworth and gave up my ticket and walked home as usual,
quite soberly and without dreams, without any wings at all.
Laura recalls the first time she concealed the truth of her relationship
from Fred, as she sits at her dressing table combing her hair with her back
to him. When she remembers lying to him, her reflection in the mirror only
displays passing glimpses of the the lower part of Fred's body:
Do you remember? I don't suppose you do, but I do. You see, you didn't know
that that was the first time in our life together that I ever lied to you.
It started then. The shame of the whole thing. The guiltiness. The fear.
Fred: Good evening, Mrs. Jesson.
Laura: Hello dear.
Fred: Have a good day?
Laura: Yes lovely. (He kisses her.)
Fred: What did you do?
Laura: Well I shopped and had lunch and went to the pictures.
Fred: All by yourself?
Laura: Yes, no not exactly.
Fred: What do you mean 'not exactly'?
Laura: Well I went to the pictures by myself, but I had lunch with Mary
Norton. She couldn't come to the pictures with me 'cause she had to go and
see her in-laws. They live just outside Milford you know. So I walked with
her to the bus and then came home on my own.
Fred: Haven't seen Mary Norton for ages. How's she looking?
Laura: Oh very well. A little fatter I thought.
Fred: Hurry up with all this beautifying. I want my dinner.
Laura: You go on down. I won't be five minutes.
Furtively, Laura phones Mary Norton (Marjorie Mars) to ask her a favor:
"Will you be a saint and back me up in the most appalling domestic lie?...My
life depends on it." That night in her bed, Laura is tormented about the
long wait until the next Thursday - their sixth meeting together:
That week was misery. I went through it in a sort of trance. [To a sleeping
Fred] How odd of you not to have noticed that you were living with a
stranger in the house. Thursday came at last. I had arranged to meet Alec
outside the hospital at 12:30.
Alec: Hello.
Laura: Hello.
Alec: I'd thought you wouldn't come. I've been thinking all the week that
you wouldn't come.
Laura: I didn't mean to really, but here I am.
They go for lunch in a "grand" restaurant in the Royal Hotel, where Alec
orders a bottle of champagne for the two of them. Laura remembers that he
asserted they must have champagne because "we were only middle-aged once."
We were very gay during lunch and talked about quite ordinary things. Oh
Fred, he really was charming. I know you would have liked him if only things
had been different. As we were going out, he said that he had a surprise for
me, and that if I would wait in the lounge for five minutes, he'd show me
what it was. He went out and down the steps at a run, more like an excited
schoolboy than a respectable doctor.
While waiting for Alec to return, out of the dining room approaches Mary
Norton and her rich cousin Mrs. Rolandson (Nuna Davey), whom Laura suspects
watched them all throughout their lunch. Mary recognizes her and comments on
her dining partner. Mortified with embarrassment, Laura matter-of-factly
explains that she had known the "charming and very attentive" (in the
cousin's words) Dr. Alec Harvey for years. As Mary bids Laura (and Alec who
has returned) goodbye, she tells her: "I do so envy you your champagne."
Alec's "surprise" sits by the curb outside - a "little two-seater car - Alec
had borrowed it from Stephen Lynn for the afternoon." They go for a ride
into the country in the borrowed convertible and stop by a little stone
bridge and a stream, but Laura is disconsolately guilty:
We leaned on the parapet of the bridge and looked down into the water. I
shivered and Alec put his arm around me.
Alec: Cold?
Laura: No, not really.
Alec: Happy?
Laura: No, not really.
Alec: I know exactly what you're going to say. That it isn't worth it. That
the furtiveness and lying outweigh the happiness we might have together.
Isn't that it?
Laura: Something like that.
Alec: I want to ask you something, just to reassure myself.
Laura: What is it?
Alec: It is true for you, isn't it? This overwhelming feeling we have for
each other. It's as true for you as it is for me, isn't it?
Laura: Yes, it's true. (They kiss as the Rachmaninoff music swells.)
We must have stayed on that bridge for a long time, because when we got back
to Stephen Lynn's garage, it was getting dark. I remember feeling that I was
on the edge of a precipice. I think Alec felt that too. You see, we both
knew how desperately we loved each other.
Laura vehemently and guardedly refuses to accompany Alec into Stephen's
unoccupied apartment to return his car keys, accurately reading his subtle
invitation to be private with her ("I refused rather too vehemently. Alec
reminded me that Stephen wasn't coming back till late but I still refused.")
Shortly later as they walk along a dark street near the train station, Alec
again requests her company to return to Stephen's borrowed apartment:
Alec: I'm going back. I'm gonna miss my train.
Laura: Back where?
Alec: To Stephen's flat.
Laura: Oh, Alec. (As an express train's whistle gets closer and whizzes by,
sending up billowing clouds of steam, they embrace each other.) Alec, I must
go home now. I really must go home.
Laura dashes off toward the refreshment room of the railway station and
orders a cup of tea, while Alec walks away in the opposite direction to stay
at his friend's flat. Comic relief is provided when two working class
officers order alcohol, but the insulted hostess Mrs. Bagot refuses to serve
them after hours:
Worker: Come off it, mother, be a pal!
Myrtle Bagot: I'll give you mother, you saucy upstart!
When the 5:43 train from Ketchworth is announced, an inner debate rages in
Laura's mind from the previous conversation:
Laura: I really must go.
Alec: I'm going back to the flat.
Laura: I must go home. I really must go home.
Alec: I'm going back to the flat.
Laura: I'm going home.
Although she enters the train compartment, she abruptly leaves the car just
as the train begins to pull away, and tells the other passengers: "Excuse
me. I've forgotten something." She walks toward the apartment and joins Alec
in his friend's flat at the start of a rainfall (the rain marks the
beginning of the end for them). Overwhelmed with inescapable guilt over
their clandestine affair, Laura's nerves are frayed by the thought of
committing adultery in a tryst, so she non-chalantly begins talking about
the rainy weather and the damp wood on the fire:
Laura: (looking in a mirror with her back to Alec) I'm an absolute fright...
Alec I hope the fire will perk up in a few minutes.
Laura: I expect the wood was damp.
Alec: Yes, I expect it was. Do sit down, darling.
Laura: I got right into the train and got out again. Wasn't it idiotic?
Alec: We're both very, very foolish. (They kiss again.)
Laura: Alec, I can't stay, you know. Really I can't.
Alec: Just a little while. Just a little while.
When they hear the sounds of Stephen Lynn (Valentine Dyall) returning
unexpectedly due to a cold, Laura fears being discovered and leaves by the
back kitchen door, as Alec greets his friend in the living room. Stephen
notices Laura's scarf on a chair and immediately interprets Alec's
intentions. [This is one of the few illogical instances in the film when a
conversation takes place in Laura's memories/fantasies that she doesn't
witness.]:
Stephen: You know, my dear Alec, you have hidden depths that I never even
suspected.
Alec: Look here, Stephen...
Stephen: For heaven's sake, Alec, no explanations or apologies. I'm the one
who should apologize for returning so inopportunely. It's quite obvious to
me that you are interviewing a patient privately. Woman are frequently
neurotic creatures and the hospital atmosphere is upsetting to them. By the
rather undignified scuffling which I heard when I came into the hall, I
gather that she beat a hasty retreat down the back stairs. I'm surprised at
this farcical streak in your nature, Alec. Such carryings-on are quite
unnecessary - after all, we've been friends for years and I am the most
broad-minded of men.
Alec: I'm really very sorry, Stephen. I'm sure that the whole situation must
seem inexpressably vulgar to you. Actually it isn't in the least. However,
you're perfectly right. Explanations are unnecessary, particularly between
old friends. I must go now.
After remaining gallant, Alec is asked to return Stephen's latch-key and he
thinks his friend is "very angry." Stephen describes his own mood, however,
as "just disappointed" rather than angry.
Ashamed and confused, Laura breathlessly runs from the apartment in the
driving rain down the city street. She realizes her obligation to phone her
husband and manufacture a devious excuse for missing dinner. [The film
rejoins Laura - with her voice-over]:
I ran until I couldn't run any longer. I leaned against a lamp post to try
and get my breath. I was in one of those side roads that lead out of the
high street. I know it was stupid to run but I couldn't help myself. I felt
so utterly humiliated and defeated and so dreadfully, dreadfully ashamed.
After a minute or two, I pulled myself together. I walked on in the
direction of the station. It was still raining but not very much. I suddenly
realized that I couldn't go home, not until I got myself more under control
and had a little time to think. Then I thought of you waiting at home and
the dinner being spoilt. So I went into the high street and found a
tobacconist and telephoned to you. Do you remember? Laura: ...Everything's
perfectly all right, but I shan't be home to dinner. I'm with Miss Lewis.
Miss Lewis, dear. You know, the librarian I told you about at Boots...Well,
I met her in the high street a little while ago in a terrible state. Her
mother's been taken ill and I promised to stay with her until the doctor
comes... It's awfully easy to lie when you know you're trusted implicitly.
So very easy and so very degrading. I started walking without much purpose.
I turned out of the high street almost immediately. I was terrified that I
might run into Alec. I was pretty certain that he would come after me to the
station. I walked for a long while. Finally, I found myself at the War
Memorial, you know, it's right at the other side of the town. It had stopped
raining altogether, and I felt stifflingly hot, so I sat down on one of the
seats.
Fleeing from her humiliation and shame - and from the apartment, Laura ends
up in a small square. From a high, wide-angle shot, she is shown as a tiny
figure approaching a bench, overshadowed by a large dark, disapproving
public statue - a War Memorial monument to her left in the foreground. The
statue (with phallic elements) 'witnesses' her inner state of mind, looming
down over her and her recent sinful, scandalous behavior. Soon, a policeman
approaches - a symbol of social order and law-abiding enforcement, and she
feels guilt ("I felt like a criminal"):
There was nobody about and I lit a cigarette. I know how you disapprove of
women smoking in the street. I do too really, but I wanted to calm my nerves
and I thought it might help. I sat there for ages, I don't know how long.
Then I noticed a policeman walking up and down a little way off. He was
looking at me rather suspiciously. Presently, he came up to me.
Bobbie/Policeman (Richard Thomas): Feeling all right, Miss?
Laura: Yes, thank you.
Bobbie: Waiting for someone?
Laura: No. No, I'm not waiting for anyone.
Bobbie: Don't go and catch cold now. The damp might be setting about on
seats.
Laura: I'm going now anyhow. I've got to catch a train.
Bobbie: Are you sure you feel quite all right?
Laura: Quite thank you. Good night.
Bobbie: Good night, Miss. I walked away, trying to look casual, knowing that
he was watching me. I felt like a criminal. I walked rather quickly back in
the direction of the high street. I got to the station fifteen minutes
before the last train to Ketchworth. And then I realized that I'd been
wandering about for over three hours, but it didn't seem to be any time at
all.
Laura requests a glass of brandy and a piece of paper and an envelope from
the attendant at the tea room bar, just as the establishment is about to
close. While pondering what to write, Alec finds her there with a worried
look on his face:
Alec: Darling, I've been looking for you everywhere.
Laura: Please go away. Please don't...Please go away.
Alec: I've watched every train. I can't leave you like this...You're being
dreadfully cruel. It was just an accident that he came back. He doesn't know
who you are. He never even saw you.
Laura: I suppose he laughed, didn't he?...
Alec: He didn't speak of you. We spoke of some nameless creature who has no
reality at all.
Laura: Well, why didn't you tell him who I was? Why didn't you say we were
cheap and low, not cowards...
Alec: Stop it, Laura. Pull yourself together.
Laura: But it's true, isn't it? It's true.
Alec: It's nothing of the sort. We know we really love each other. That's
true. That's all that really matters.
Laura: It isn't all that really matters. Other things matter too.
Self-respect matters and decency. I can't go on any longer.
Alec: Could you really say goodbye? Never see me again?
Laura: Yes, if you'd help me.
Alec: I love you, Laura. I shall love you always until the end of my life. I
can't look at you now cause I know something. I know that this is the
beginning of the end. Not the end of my loving you but the end of our being
together. But not quite yet, darling. Please. Not quite yet.
Laura: Very well. Not quite yet.
Alec: I know what you feel about this evening. I mean about the sordidness
of it. I know about the strain of our different lives - our lives apart from
each other. The feeling of guilt and doing wrong is too strong, isn't it?
Too great a price to pay for the happiness we have together. I know all this
because it's the same for me too.
Laura: You can look at me now. I'm all right.
Alec: Let's be very careful. Let's prepare ourselves. A sudden break now,
however brave and admirable will be too cruel. We can't do such violence to
our hearts and minds.
Laura: Very well.
As the bell for Laura's train rings, Alec announces his family's anticipated
departure to Johannesburg, South Africa where he will join a medical clinic.
It is a gentlemanly, responsible gesture to resolve the dilemma of their
relationship, and it signals the coming end of their short-lived romance and
the "only way out" to end their pain:
Alec: I'm going away...
Laura: I see...
Alec: ...but not quite yet.
Laura: Please, not quite yet. (The leave the tea room and walk together
toward the station platform.)
Alec: I want you to promise me something.
Laura: What is it?
Alec: Promise me that however unhappy you are and however much you think
things over that you'll meet me again next Thursday.
Laura: Where?
Alec: Outside the hospital at 12:30.
Laura: All right, I promise.
Alec: I've got to talk to you. I've got to explain.
Laura: About going away?
Alec: Yes.
Laura: Where will you go? Where can you go? You can't give up your practice.
Alec: I've had a job offered me. I wasn't going to tell you. I wasn't going
to take it, but I know now it's the only way out.
Laura: Where?
Alec: A long way away - Johannesburg.
Laura (startled): Oh Alec.
Alec: My brother's out there. They're opening a new hospital and they want
me to...It's a fine opportunity, really. I'll take Madeleine and the boys.
It's been torturing me, the necessity of making a decision one way or the
other. I haven't told anybody. Not even Madeleine. I couldn't bear the
thought of leaving you. But now I see it's got to happen soon anyway. It's
almost happening already.
Stunned, Laura sits down as the news has a delayed impact upon her and
begins to sink in.
Laura: How soon will you go?
Alec: Almost immediately, in about two weeks time.
Laura: Quite near, isn't it?
Alec: Do you want me to stay? Do you want me to turn down the offer?
Laura: Oh don't be foolish, Alec.
Alec: I'll do whatever you say.
Laura (crying): That's unkind of you, my darling.
Train Announcement: The train for Ketchworth is now arriving at platform
three.
In a well-remembered image, Laura is led to the train in Alec's arm. She
steps in the car, turns, and leans out the window.
Alec: You're not angry with me are you?
Laura: No, I'm not angry. I don't think I'm anything really. I just feel
tired.
Alec: Forgive me.
Laura: Forgive you for what?
Alec: For everything. For meeting you in the first place. For taking a piece
of grit out of your eye. For loving you. For bringing you so much misery.
Laura: I'll forgive you if you'll forgive me.
Alec: Thursday.
In a memorable scene on their last day together, their seventh and final
Thursday meeting, they finish with another ride into the country, and a
second visit to the stone bridge.
All that was a week ago. It's hardly credible that it should be so short a
time. Today was our last day together. Our very last together in all our
lives. I met him outside the hospital as I had promised at 12:30. At 12:30
this morning. That was only this morning. We drove into the country again,
but this time he hired a car. I lit cigarettes for him now and then as we
went along. We didn't talk much. I felt numbed and hardly alive at all. We
had lunch in a village pub. Afterwards, we went to the same bridge over the
stream, the bridge that we'd been to before. Those last few hours went by so
quickly. As we walked through the station, I remembered thinking: 'This is
the last time with Alec. I shall see all this again, but without Alec.' I
tried not to think of it, not to let it spoil our last moments together.
They share a final cup of tea and a brief and painful parting to end their
clandestine affair. The tea room scene is played out a second time, but this
time from the perspective of Laura's subjective memory. Their final meeting
is all the more poignant, as it marks the beginning (and end) of the
narrative - and the end of their affair. They sit at a table - the camera
closely centered on them as they have their last intimate conversation
together:
Alec: Are you all right, darling?
Laura: Yes, I'm all right.
Alec: I wish I could think of something to say.
Laura: It doesn't matter, not saying anything, I mean.
Alec: I'll miss my train and wait and see you into yours.
Laura: No, please don't. I'll come over with you to your platform. I'd
rather...Do you think we shall ever see each other again?
Alec: I don't know. Not for years, anyway.
Laura: The children will all be grown up. I wonder if they never meet and
know each other.
Alec: Couldn't I write you, just once in a while?
Laura: No, Alec please. You know we promised.
Alec (confessing): Oh, my dear. I do love you so very much. I love you with
all my heart and soul.
Laura: I want to die. If only I could die.
Alec: If you die, you'd forget me. I want to be remembered.
Laura: Yes, I know, I do too.
Alec: We've still got a few minutes.
At this moment, they are disrupted by Dolly's loud voice, interrupting their
conversation. The camera is focused on Laura's face (her face is the only
thing illuminated in the frame). Her voice-over monologue of her inner
thoughts reflects her annoyance and disturbance with Dolly:
It was cruel of fate to be against us right up to the very last minute.
Dolly Messiter. Poor, well-meaning, irritating Dolly Messiter crashing into
those last few precious minutes we had together. She chattered and fussed
but I didn't hear what she said. I felt dazed and bewildered. Alec behaved
so beautifully, with such perfect politeness. No one could have guessed what
he was really feeling. And then...[the departure bell for Alec's train
rings]
Laura: Here's your train.
Alec: Yes, I know.
Dolly: Oh, aren't you coming with us?
Alec: No, I go in the opposite direction. My practice is in Churley.
Dolly: Oh, I see.
Alec: I'm a general practitioner at the moment.
Laura: Dr. Harvey's going out to Africa next week.
Dolly: Oh, how thrilling.
Train Announcer: The train now arriving at platform four is the 5:40 for
Churley...
Alec: I must go. Goodbye. (He rises and shakes hands with Dolly and then
rests his hand lightly on Laura's right shoulder for a moment.)
I felt the touch of his hand on my shoulder for a moment. And then he walked
away, away out of my life forever. Dolly still went on talking, but I wasn't
listening to her. I was listening to the sound of his train starting. And it
did.
The camera again focuses on Laura's illuminated face as she listens to the
sound of his departing train.
I said to myself: 'He didn't go. At the last minute his courage failed him;
he couldn't have gone. Any minute now, he'll come back into the refreshment
room pretending he's forgotten something.' I prayed for him to do that, just
so that I could see him again, for an instant. (Pause) But the minutes went
by...[the departure bell for the express train rings]
Dolly again asks for chocolate and walks away from the table. As the roaring
sound of the approaching express train increases in volume, the camera tilts
to the right, causing the horizontal image to slowly move counter-clockwise.
Laura's despairing mind causes her to literally jump up abruptly from the
table and rush outside the tea room to the rail platform - still at a tilted
angle. Her internal state is externalized and stylized as disorienting and
unbalanced. In one of the film's most memorable sequences, at the edge of
the platform as the train screeches through, the wind blows back her hair
and the light from the passing cars flickers and pounds across her tortured
face. Her face displays wide-eyed despair and defeat as the lights beat out
the rhythm of the clattering of the train's wheels. Anguished by Alec's
departure, she contemplates suicide by throwing herself under the passing
train, but she doesn't go through with her mad, self-destructive urge. She
lacks the courage to do so. When the express train has completely passed
through the station, the camera moves back to a horizontal, untilted
position.
I meant to do it, Fred, I really meant to do it. I stood there trembling
right on the edge, but I couldn't. I wasn't brave enough. I should like to
be able to say that it was the thought of you and the children that
prevented me but it wasn't. I had no thoughts at all, only an overwhelming
desire not to feel anything ever again. Not to be unhappy anymore. I turned.
I went back into the refreshment room. That's when I nearly fainted.
In the final scene following their parting after such a brief encounter, her
flashback ends as the film jumps from her standing at the doorway of the tea
room, to a view of her seated in her armchair in her home - stuck back in
her predictable and humdrum middle-class existence and routine. Dazed,
disoriented, defeated (?) and jarred by memories of her passionate love
affair, she is in the company of Fred - her unemotional husband. It is quite
possible that he is aware of how close he'd come to losing her when he
kneels beside her and asks:
Fred: Laura?
Laura: Yes, dear.
Fred: Whatever your dream was, it wasn't a very happy one, was it?
Laura: No.
Fred: Is there anything I can do to help?
Laura: Yes, Fred, you always have.
Fred: You've been a long way away.
Laura: Yes.
Fred: Thank you for coming back to me. (Laura weeps in Fred's arms.)
Tim Dirks
